Grim Gal Guardians: Demon Purge – Good Game with Deceptive Promotion?

Warning: Spoilers contained within.

Wow. I had so little idea what I was getting into with this one from the jump.

When I first set eyes on the reveal trailer above, I got excited. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin was one of my favorite games from that entire franchise, and this? This looked like more Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, so I was immediately in. Fry wasn’t even holding up a wad of cash and ordering them to take his money, because I’d already elbowed him out of the way.

Little did I realize how sneaky Inti Creates was being with this game, however. And to their credit, their subterfuge worked pretty well, because unless you knew, then you had no idea what this game was. So to that, I say “well played.”

See, the thing about Grim Guardians: Demon Purge is that I — and I believe others — thought this was a new franchise from Inti Creates. And hey, maybe in a sense, it is, or will be. But what I had no idea about was that this was actually tied to another, more infamous series of theirs.

As time wore on and people started talking, I heard things. For one, “Grim Guardians: Demon Purge shares its initials with another Inti game: Gal*Gun: Double Peace. Okay, interesting, but doesn’t necessarily mean anything, right? Maybe it was just someone being cute about the naming. Sort of like how the Nintendo DS had all those games with clever subtitles that abbreviated to “DS,” right?

Then, I came to find out that the game’s stars, Shinobu and Maya Kamizono, apparently originated in Gal*Gun. Huh.

At this point, I should probably note that for the uninitiated, Gal*Gun is game that is notorious for being, well, lewd. With schoolgirls. So naturally, one would expect a game tied to Gal*Gun to be lewd… with schoolgirls.

And while schoolgirls would appear as captives to be rescued in the second and final trailers… well, unless you knew who they were, you weren’t going to know who they are. I thought maybe Shinobu and Maya had been spun off into another style of game, genre, and story altogether. Think of how Kazuma Kiryu portrays Sakamoto Ryōma in Ishin: Like a Dragon, along with other similar recasting, for a recent example. Or like how the Rabbids have effectively been divorced from Rayman for nearly a decade and a half now. Even Copen from Inti Creates’ own Azure Striker Gunvolt series has gone on to do his own thing now, albeit still under the Gunvolt branding.

But nope; this is basically a Gal*Gun game of a different stripe. But unless you knew something about Gal*Gun beforehand, you’d never know it. Not in the trailers, not in the press releases, not in the webpage, the series of origin is never mentioned once.

Suffice to say, I’m not quite sure that Grim Guardians ever carries on as its predecessor does (and I’m not keen to find out). A little of that lewd anime/manga sense of humor pokes its head in around the end of the third stage or so, but doesn’t rear its head again until around the second half of the game, but it hasn’t seemed too egregious, from what I’ve seen. Maybe a little eye-rolling (and the game itself plays it rather tongue-in-cheek as well), but for the vast majority, it seemed okay.

Why am I spending so much time pointing this out? Because if that’s an influence on whether you’re interested in this game, now you know whether to keep reading. And otherwise, without someone telling you, you’re not going to find out until you’re already deep into it. I wouldn’t say it’s bad, but it’s there.

Note: Since posting this review, Inti Creates has changed the name of the game, due to a complaint from the owners of the trademark, “GRIMGUARD.” The game is now officially known as “Gal Guardians: Demon Purge,” which admittedly feels a bit more straightforward with regards to its place in the Inti Creates universe.

That said, the lewd shounen cheekiness (which I kinda shrugged off; this is Inti Creates, after all, but YMMV) aside? I rather enjoyed this title.

Even though it’s not quite what I was expecting.

Way back up at the top, where I mentioned Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin? That was a part of the Metroidvania/IGAvania/search action/whatever we’re calling it today genre, and Grim Guardians? It’s not… not exactly, anyway.

Rather than one large map you can explore freely as you gain various items and powers, Grim Guardians is split into seven levels. Each level is filled with various alternate routes, passageways, and hidden chambers, though many will be blocked off to you for the first half of the game. As you progress, you can revisit earlier levels as you complete them, though your ability to do much of anything is hindered until the second half of the game.

The second half of the game is where things really open up. In a style my TMMN cohort ShadowRockZX fittingly likened to Capcom’s Ghosts ‘n Goblins series, you’re tasked with taking on the seven levels again, this time in a more challenging state. With the items and weapons you’ve gained through the first run, you’ll be able to explore new areas, find new items to bolster your stats a bit, and upgrade your arsenal in some pretty cool ways (although it’s going to take a little grinding out to upgrade everything).

Unfortunately, navigation is a bit… chunky. These are not small stages, by any stretch, and I’d say it usually takes me in the ballpark of around half an hour to get through one. Of course, I try to be thorough on each pass, so some may not find it quite as long, but still. If you’re being thorough but not powering up everything, that’s probably going to last you the better part of 14 hours. But with alternate endings and other stuff in mind, that can be increased a fair bit, too.

More irksome is that you have no map during levels (only before selecting a level) to see where you’ve been or where you need to go, and the compass only serves to lead you to the boss. What’s more, you can only move between stages when you’re either still at the beginning or have reached the end, by way of special pillars in the connecting hallways. That is, you can’t just exit out of a stage and go to another without exiting to the title screen, though this does at least do you the courtesy of saving any items you’ve found.

There are multiple difficulty options as well, with Veteran being a tougher experience, and Casual removing such things as finite lives, knockback, and more. Plus, the ability to have one sister revive the other fallen sister can mitigate the loss of lives, as both must fall before a life is lost. So as long as you can keep them reviving each other, you should be fine. This helped me out a TON, save for one particular boss who had me quite pissed off.

Swapping the two sisters provides some fun gameplay variation. Shinobu is the tougher of the two, with a longer life meter, though her ranged attacks don’t tend to do as much damage. Maya is the melee fighter of the two, slicing through foes like nobody’s business, but has to get dangerously close to them in order to do the deed. Sadly, unlike Portrait of Ruin, you can’t have both active at once, unless you’re in 2-player mode, which means you can’t use one to elevate the other into hard-to-reach places or have both attack at once as you could in that game.

Incidentally, what makes it more the shame is that Maya has a special item that feels all but useless on its own. It ostensibly creates a floating platform that you can use to get to higher places, but it either tends to fall too low to matter, or too high to jump on. It’s the second item you get, but if it isn’t nearly useless, it seems like it requires some sort of high-level play to make any good use of. Fortunately, it’s more the exception than the rule, as I found myself switching out between both sisters’ other weapons and items a lot.

Graphics and sound hit the high standard we’ve come to expect from Inti Creates, though unfortunately, there is something of an asterisk by the sound. If you play in “Pure Mode,” you get Japanese voice acting for everything, from the cutscenes and dialogue to the gameplay grunts and sound bytes. Go with “Refined Mode,” however, and you get English for the in-game bits only — cutscenes and dialogue remain sadly silent. And if you prefer sweet, serene silence from voices altogether? Good luck, because there’s no option there for you.

Controls are good, for the most part. They flow more than the oldschool Castlevania games, but are a little clunkier than the latter ones, or Mega Man, among others. Most of the time, they work just fine, but if you want to inch towards a ledge, you’re more likely to get a foot and go flying off. This isn’t an issue often, but it does occasionally creep up.

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed the time I’ve spent with Grim Guardians: Demon Purge. It’s not a perfect game, as it does have a few rough spots here and there that can hopefully be tidied up in a patch, or perhaps even a sequel, but it’s good solid fun. It’s not the game I thought I’d get when I first signed on for this, but I’ve nevertheless enjoyed the bulk of my time with it. I recommend giving it a look, as long as you’re okay with the stuff mentioned at the top of the article.

Oh, and I should probably point out that, as near as I can tell, you don’t need to have played any of the Gal*Gun games to enjoy this, but they do make references and stuff to past events, so those familiar with the series might get something more out of it.

If you’d like to see my wife, Nadia, and I play through a few levels in the 2-player mode, you can check that out on the most recent episode of “Nadia & David Ruin Video Games” right here:

Thanks for reading!

The version played for this article was the Xbox release.